White Paint on Canvas

When I begin to start the process of painting a landscape, or a beautiful portrait of any kind, I start off, by choosing, and looking at all the different perspectives and paths I can go about on how to draw, and perfect the masterpiece I would be creating. For me, every perspective is as important as the last, as each plays a vital role on how the painting itself will fold out. Every perspective is important, and not one, can go unseen, or un-noticed, because they all fold together to form the bigger idea, and notion of the painting. Each perspective is a gear, an intricate clockwork, streaming from my mind. If a clock work is missing the smallest of gears, then it would affect the whole machine, and every single intricate working would screech to a halt. A perspective is a gear, in the workings of a clock work painting. As I shift my corpus, from one point looking at the object, to another, moving my body’s position, the point of view, changes, adding another addition to a collaboration of collected perspectives I have, each as important as the last to be inspected.

Only after I have looked over every sight, and every perspective, and I have inspected every gear, which would make up my clockwork, I have to make a decision. I have to choose, one perspective, one sight, out of the many views I have looked over. One that I will take, and make my painting, the one that I will pour my feelings, and soul into, a perspective which will burst to life, in colors and beautiful pigments, on my blank canvas, a canvas, that is white as snow.

I grab some loose papers, and I begin the long process of planning the way the painting will turn out. The perspective may be too large, or even too small for it to flower on contact with paint, on the white canvas. I must place the view down on paper first, in symmetry to my canvas, as when I will bring my proportionate drawing onto the real thing, it must be shaped correctly, for my perspective to be the same, as the one appearing on my canvas. One small movement, or change in view, a flick of the eyes, and a mark of the pencil, can change the painting all together, as I will incorporate two perspectives into one, which is impossible. It would be unreal; a idea in an artists mind, but it would not be the perspective that was wanted. It would not be the reality of what was shown. A misconception. I take my pencil, and I gently sketch my view onto rough pieces of scrap, and I repeat this process many times, until, I am satisfied with the way it will play out on my Canvas. I choose a variation, and only one. And with this small drawing, showing me the boundaries of where I cannot go, and where I should reach. I swipe my brush in a dab of red paint, and I press it gently against the canvas. On touch, the canvas slowly sags, and darkens, as the paint hits the outer shell, and spreads, as I move my arm in a violent motion, like a ancient calligraphy, the line of blood swishes against the canvas, and the first strokes of my painting are made. Slowly, more and more strokes are thrown across the canvas, in general sweeping ideas and motions, and although unreadable, the markings on my canvas will serve as my layout for the importance of what comes next. Seemingly, these large strokes of paint are useless, but to me, they are anything, and everything, serving as a base for my soul to enter, to take over, and to unleash my style, and my painting into the midst of the white canvas, and make it flourish with color. Bit by bit, I add definite shades of color, shaping, and molding the interworking of the painting, the base of that very same clock work. My strokes widen, and shorten, and then without a pattern, flow out and stroke the skin of the canvas, in all directions, this way and that, each molding and pressing colors into the vision of what I see happening in my head, a picture in my brain, visualizing where I am heading, and why I am stroking right instead of left. Slowly, I add depth, and soul into the paint shaping down on my canvas, and I bring in essences of pure emotion, and expressionism into the painting I am shaping, and I release what I feel, and what is right to me straight onto that canvas. Anger, shaped by violent red colors, and jerking motions, while sadness, with soft blue hues and melodic strokes, and happiness, and joy, with vibrant greens, and sweeping motions. I put myself into my painting. My soul, and my heart, all that I stand for, I put straight into the heart of my painting, and it is no longer just about showing perspective to a person, it is about me, and who I am, and all of this is shown in the importance and colors of the strokes. Nothing can be wrong, unless there is a wrong within myself. Everything, my feelings, my soul, my heart, my loves, my fears, my hates, is out into that one stroke that I sweep across my intricate canvas. Everything I have. Everything I love. It cannot be wrong. No matter how my perspective is off, it does not matter any more. My opinions, and strength, in my painting lies within myself, lies in who I am, and what I stand for. Slowly, a painting meant to show a vision, or a sight, is not a painting any longer. It is me. All these aspects, come together, and they create a unique look to anything I do, and to anything I draw. It is called style, and everybody’s is different, as they can never be the same. No person thinks the same, or shares the exact same feeling as another in this world. All are different. It is impossible to be completely alike. Everybody’s style is different, because the person inside them will always be different from me. 100 people could draw the exact same perspective and none will be alike. A painting, done by a man in pain, will always differ from one that is in bliss. All feelings are different. All lives are different. Therefore, all styles are different, and none, will ever be just like mine. I continue pouring all I have within me onto the canvas, paint simply being used as a medium, or a tool, to transcribe what I feel, onto my canvas. I do not see paint on a blank wall, I see myself, a mirror reflection. Every small detail, a small stroke, a pinprick of blue, and a smooth flow of colors, is all a part of me. I am my painting. By looking at my perspective, I see more than just colors. I see shades of myself, and shades of colors that are bypassed in the sight. As I keep stroking my brush gently against the now filled canvas, I add colors, which are not seen in the first point of view. Dashes of purple, instead of brown, and colors, one on top of another, to form others, no matter how bland my view is. All my views are pure, in what I see, and not what another man sees. It is what I understand the point of view to be, not another’s understanding. Slowly, as my painting becomes visible, and it is understood, that I am drawing that certain perspective, I ever so slightly press my brush into a glob of paint, on my destroyed, and thrown about pallet. Taking a small hue of light blue, I take it and cover a bright red flash of pain on my canvas. Something doesn’t feel right. I have changed, and what I feel has been though over, so as I change, correspondingly, so does my painting. Bright colors are suddenly covered with dark blues, and I completely change my beautiful painting, different from what it used to be, showing a change in my ambient mood. It changes, like the morning blue sky, to cloudy storms, and merciless rain. My painting changes as I do. All hours put into the layer before this one are forgotten. This layer is the new one, and the one before, is unimportant. It is gone, unnoticed. I shed a layer of thought. Furiously, I paint. I put everything I can into the painting, and it begins to show, the person I am, by just glancing at this masterpiece. I give it all I’ve got, and a bond grows between my painting and I, and there is a clean flow of energy, and fiery passion flowing through my veins, into the rings of color. My brush scrapes the surface, and deposits bits of feeling, and thought in a form of paint. I give it all I have, everything I live for, and everything I will die for, I put into this. Look, and if you peer close enough, you will see me in that painting. It is done, my piece is finished, and I step back at a distance to admire what I have created, and I look at how all the colors and strokes fall together to form one large piece. I look at my feelings, and I reflect what I felt, in the beauty of what I have painted, a masterpiece of colors, and feelings, molded into one, one large clockwork. A clock work not just formed using a perspective. Many people stare, and critique my work, and look at it, and they see the perspective, and only a small amount of me in the painting itself. They adore it, enjoy the beauty of it, and tell me what they think, the good, the bad, the additions, waiting to be made, and over all what they believe the painting stands for, and what it is to them. Most pass by the point that I put myself into it. They only see colors. They only see strokes. But deep inside me, I know, I know that I see more. I see myself. There is something wrong, very wrong in my painting. I cannot realize it, and I cannot grasp it. I do not know what is wrong with my perfect clockwork painting. But, I sense it. There is a wrong, a small color, a large feeling, or emotion, that I forgot to put in, or that I didn’t see, that I surpassed. I can’t know which, and I will never know. It bugs me. It hits me, like a train to the face. I scream internally, my soul yelling, trying to realize what I have forgot, the wrong, which I forgot to put into my pure painting. The wrong, which I forgot to put within myself. What is it? What can it be? I will never know, until I simply get it right. A clockwork will not work, if even the smallest of gears is missing. Neither will I, until I find, and correct my wrong, add in what is missing. I must find it. I must, no matter how many more ties it takes. Slowly, I sigh, as I sit down on my small chair, and I grip my brush with a strong grasp, and as I clutch it in my hand, I collect white paint on my brush. I sweep the white paint onto my brush, and I hold it there, for a couple of minutes. I think about my painting, about me, and, with a strong, assured motion, I sweep through my painting. A white lie blossoms through out my painting, and it strikes a bland destructive blow to me. I am destroying myself, to recreate me. I need to find out, what I missed. I need to redo it. I must go on, and continue blanking out my painting. Everything grows silent as I continue throwing white paint on my canvas. Paint flares, and the vibrant colors fade. I fade. Soon, everything is covered, and there is no trace left of my old self, the me with a missing link. I begin to paint. I stretch and I throw more colors onto my blank canvas. I continue, and I will paint, again and again, until I find that missing piece. I will learn, and continue, until l I have seen what I have done wrong, and I have noticed my miss. I will paint, again and again, the same perspective, but a different feeling, a different soul, until I get what I am looking for, until I realize what I south, and what was not there. Until then, I will be there, splashing paint on a canvas. White paint on a canvas.

Subscribe

Get Teen Ink’s 48-page monthly print edition. Written by teens since 1989.